I've long been interested in the works of the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. I've read Thoughts in Solitude and have in my library but haven't read The Seven Storey Mountain and The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton. I hope to read them both soon.
Now I'm reading The Value of Solitude, The Ethics and Spirituality of Aloneness in Autobiography by John D. Barbour, and he devotes a chapter to Thomas Merton. The above image is from this book.
There are an amazing number of opinions on solitude held by as many people. Some crave it and some are repulsed by it calling it the utmost in selfishness. I fall into the first camp. How about you?
"When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious how benign, is Solitude."
William Wordsworth
